I bid you farewell : A tribute to my mom

This was a note I wrote on Facebook on the 13th day of my mom’s passing. I thought I would share this too here.

Today marks the 13th day since my mom became free from the pain and sufferance. According to Hinduism now she has become a free spirit. Although it’s hard for me to pen down how I feel, I want to pour down some of my feelings through words.

The mornings are hard. It takes some time for me to fully realize what has happened but then slowly it comes back again. I lay down still for a moment and find courage to face the day again. Her voices ring in my head. I remember the times when she used to wake me up for school.

The last time I talked to her she was in the hospital. She could barely talk with life support machines surrounding her. She asked me not to come running back leaving behind everything that I’ve worked hard for five and half years. She said she will be okay and asked me not to worry. We both knew it was not true. She was very far from being okay.  I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for her to say those words to me. What mother wouldn’t want to see her child who she hasn’t seen in almost six years . No one knows the inner workings of my mother’s mind more than I do. I have been her confidant for many years. I know she always wanted the best for me. During this difficult time some people have called me heartless for not visiting my dying mother. What do they know? I don’t need to prove my love for my mother to anyone.

We say we live in a free world but we are bound by these laws that confine us to a certain place. Being a citizen of this world we have to abide by the rules silently. I constantly asked “why her?”. That question doesn’t help. Cancer doesn’t know how good of a person she was. As they say cancer is a bitch. We have to swallow the truth like a bitter medicine.

Repeatedly listening to her voicemail which she had left on my phone about a year ago is not helping.  I have to find the strength to let her go. For now I have become a daughter to my grandmother who has lost her only daughter, a sister to brothers who have lost their only sister. I have to be strong for my father who sees images of my mom in me and I have a motherly responsibility to my brother. My mom has fulfilled all her duties as a mother. She has raised my brother and me with all her values and morals. We have grown up.  No one will ever love me as much as my mom did. I will always miss her but I will try to make her sacrifices worthwhile.

Thank you everyone for being with me and my family and for listening to my ramblings throughout these months. It has made me feel a lot better. Thirteen days ago she was far away from me but now she is within me.

P.S. I would also like to thank Tool and Maynard James Keenan for the epic that is 10,000 days. It has truly helped me.

An ode to my first best friend

 I had to say goodbye to a family member this week. For a change it wasn’t a human being but a family member nonetheless. She was our dog and my first best friend since I was 8 or 9. She was almost 16. Mom brought her home when she was tired of me and my brother borrowing neighbors’ dogs for a night or two. Her name was puppy. I guess no one was creative enough to name her something else. But she liked it I guess.

The important fact about her history is that she came into our household because she was a girl dog. In Nepal, most people prefer to have male dogs as compared to female dogs so that they won’t have to deal with male dogs hovering around the female dogs. It was our luck that we got to take her home even though she was a female dog. And my mom made the right decision like she always did. Puppy gave birth to 4 generations of puppies. Most of our relatives in Kathmandu have had one of her puppies as pet. Thus, spreading happiness in so many households.

Puppy reminded my mom of me after I moved to US. She used to say, “Well I have another daughter here with me. She is just like you in so many ways”. Oh how I wish! She was a very wonderful dog. If she was a human being she would be a beautiful woman with model-like features. I mean look at that picture! I don’t think I would be wrong if I say dogs are the most genuine and selfless creatures in this world.

Puppy was the first face I saw in the morning. She would be right there wagging her tail knowing that I’m going to be functional again and maybe play with her for a little bit. She always made my mornings better. I used to share secrets with her which now she has taken to her grave like a true best friend. When I left Nepal almost 6 years ago, I gave her a tight hug and waved her goodbye thinking that I might not see her again. Because she was already 10 then. But little did I know that she wouldn’t be the only face that I would never see again.

Thanks for all the wonderful memories and happiness you brought to our home. You will forever be in our hearts and you will be my favorite dog forever. You were a very nice bitch. Farewell my friend!

Guest writer for my blog : My brother

I have decided to include my brother’s writing on my blog. I have not seen him in almost 6 years in real life  but we are still connected. In order for me not to be worried about him, I wanted him to express his thoughts through words.  He expresses it better in words than in speech. It was important for me to know how he is really feeling after what our family went through. Then he sent me this piece of writing. So presenting my brother’s thoughts and writing below y’all:

I am writing and as I write this, a lot of thoughts are running through my head, a lot of people in my setting that matter, a lot of things i need to attend to, a lot of things I think I need and want to attend to and the things that surround me like thorns, lovely lights, hateful scars and the unseen.

Memories and pain of the losses on the back of my mind reminding me of just how painful things can get. And also the strength in us that arise in turmoil. Even with relatively little experience than that of those who have been through rougher times, more times than one could count or even imagine. 

I am aware of something inside me that I can’t really describe in words accurately. A cruel presence, a ticking bomb waiting to explode, an undefined energy within me. It’s good as I optimistically hope. 

It just might be the mess of thoughts that’s bursting loud to be arranged, fragmented, or cleared up in some kind of systematic fashion. I am writing in hope of this unseen and heavy cruel presence that I’m feeling to take some kind of form and a pattern clear enough to be read. It’s neither physical nor emotional. It’s just present….in an unexplainable frustration, a hint of some grand event yet to be witnessed, a storm yet to pass, like an illness yet to be cured. Realizing it being a “change” in broader perspective that I need to make in a lot of levels in myself.

Change – a shifting of perspective                                                 

Change – breaking the shame

Change – the unexpected

Change – the permanent

Change – the process of nature

Change – the cycle

Change – the necessary 

Change – the unavoidable

Maybe all I need to do is expect, embrace and empathize to quantify the internal potential changes for a better version of myself for others, for a better setting, for a better season, for a better weather, for a better year,…for better life for myself and of those who love me. Maybe all these “perceived frustrations” is a realization of what the people who genuinely love us have to offer for a better versions of ourselves. As we are running through our individual matters, submerged in our own world of thoughts and rigid beliefs. 

As I’m turning grateful of having such loving presence in my life and the unlimited offers of changes. I feel lucky and ready to be accepting them. And for this I send my love and positive energy to the ones I have lost as it is all I can do in hopes of them smiling somewhere in a bright place as I’d like to imagine. Although, I can never be sure if this is a one way conversation or two. Because they might be replying me in some other forms we don’t really understand. Because I cannot feel them in this life..well not anymore.

Change – A process of perceived cruel frustration turning into a recipe of a better version of oneself and  to those that matter in one simple writing. 

– Aasutosh Dhoj Karki

I hate a lot of people. And it’s okay!

I hate a lot of people but I have reasons. I hate the fact that I’m going to write this article or whatever the hell this is and people will overlook the things I’m trying to say by judging the way I write, my word choices, my sentence structure and paragraph breaks. But I don’t care! I’m just going to speak my mind however the fuck I want to. Because I have to let this out. And I’m just going to use simple words so that people won’t have to google the meaning of a word or have to look for a dictionary to actually know what I mean. Life has to be simple and it is. Be considerate to people who might not actually have rich vocabulary but deserve to know what an article is trying to say. I’m writing this because many people need to know this.
I hate the fact that I felt like shit for many years and it’s because of the people who made me feel like that. Nepal! you’re a beautiful country but some people there and the government there are horrible. I hate the fact that people have to leave their own country and the people who they love for better opportunities abroad because you left them no choice. I hate the fact that they have to go be a slave in an arab country to build stadiums for entertainment. I hate the fact that you made me choose between my future and seeing my mom for the last time. I wanted to tell her how much she has inspired me in every way possible but I couldn’t do it. She didn’t know that. I hate the fact that I am questioning my atheism in hopes to see my mom again and tell her how important she was to me in after life where I might meet her. But I don’t believe that, I wish I did. And it’s okay! She is alive inside me forever.
I hate the fact that some people made me feel like I was some kind of devil and a nuisance for not believing that there’s an invisible person in the sky. Those are the same people who made me feel like an outcast in my own country where we speak the same language. You left me no choice than to flee to a foreign land alone. I hate those people who made me feel ugly my whole childhood just because I had slightly darker skin and wore glasses. You people are horrible!
I hate the fact and actually amazed by the fact that people can kill innocent children to make their invisible god happy. You people are crazy! You had no right to do that. They didn’t do anyone any harm. You killed million hopes and ideas with those children which could some day benefit this world. I don’t consider you people human beings. Same goes to the group of people who recently killed a guy who wanted to make others laugh.
Let’s talk about my motherland again. I hate those people in my culture who tell my dad that in order to be happy, his daughter needs to get married and be settled with a guy from the same culture by now and make him worry about his daughter. I am happy dad! There’s nothing to worry about. You know why? Along with the assholes and horrible people in this world, there are people who are wonderful and are making your daughter happy in this foreign land where I speak different language than I speak to you. I’m sorry! in fact there also are people here with whom I speak the same language and are actually awesome.
Talking about America, I hate the corporate culture here that allows their employees to be treated as a commodity rather than a human being just because they signed or did not sign a piece of paper. You people are horrible!
Yeah! I hate a lot of people and it’s okay. All that matters is happiness. And everyone deserves to be happy. Just don’t surround yourself with assholes who make you feel like shit. Do whatever that makes you happy but yeah don’t do drugs. It’s bad.